Trevor Pennington,
minister at the First Baptist Church in Weslington, Pennsylvania,
climbed out of his car and strode up the walkway toward the building
before him. A sign out front read "Merrimac Research
Laboratories."

Pennington had received
an unusual summons a few weeks ago- an invitation to some sort of
party held at the science center. He hadn't known the name of the
host, and he had called the science center to ask if there was some
mistake and the invitation was intended for someone else, but the
person on the other line had assured him that the invitation was
intended for Minister Pennington.

He reached the front
doors, and saw a man dressed as an Orthodox Jew standing outside
them. When Pennington drew near, the Jew said, "Oh, Sir! These
doors are locked! Could you let me in, please, and tell me where I
might find Conference Room C?"

The other man's words
startled Pennington, for he knew the party he was to attend was in
Conference Room C. He held his hands up as if to demonstrate that he
was helpless, then announced, "I don't work here; I don't have
a key. Sorry."

Pennington tried the
doors once himself, although he was certain the Jew was correct in
his assertion that they were locked. As the two waited for someone
to let them in, Pennington decided to be friendly and extended a hand
in greeting. "My name is Trevor Pennington," he introduced
himself.

The Jew shook his hand
and replied, "I'm Rabbi Hassid."

Pennington smiled, then
said, "A Rabbi and a Baptist Minister are locked outside a science
center before a party. I don't know about you, but to me this
sounds like some sort of joke."

"Maybe someone's
just having a good time watching the two of us standing around and
waiting for the door to open," Rabbi Hassid replied. "Why would
the front doors be locked anyway?"

Pennington shrugged,
then said, "Well, the main building is basically open to the
public, but the Merrimac building is reserved for research. Maybe
whoever works here doesn't want all the people touring the main
buildings to wander over here and interrupt his work."

"Well, if he didn't
want his work interrupted, he shouldn't have held a party." Rabbi
Hassid complained. "I'm assuming that this party is why you are
here."

A hollow silence fell
over the pair as each contemplated the situation. Pennington
wondered why he'd come to a party hosted by a man he didn't know.
He'd been curious to find out why a complete stranger would invite
him to a party at the science center, but now his better judgement
determined that this was all a joke, and Pennington had wasted his
time.

After a few minutes, a
woman in a business suit approached. Pennington heard the click of
her high heels on the pavement long before he saw her.

When the woman reached
the front door, she looked questioningly at the men standing there,
then reached for the handle. As she started to tug on it, and her
brow furrowed in confusion when the door didn't open, Pennington
explained, "The doors are locked."

"I don't suppose
you have a key?" Rabbi Hassid added.

The woman shook her
head, then said, "No, I don't have a key. I'm only here for
some party."

Pennington looked from
Rabbi Hassid to the woman, then asked, "I don't suppose you're
the leader of a religious group, are you?"

The question only
seemed to further confuse the woman as she answered, "No, I'm a
teacher."

A few more minutes
passed, then another man appeared. He seemed to be all about
business as he marched to the front doors, looked at each of the
partiers who had already assembled, then asked, "What are you all
doing here? This building isn't open to the public."

"We were invited
here," the woman declared, spinning on the other man and pulling an
invitation out of her purse. "We're supposed to be in Conference
Room C right now, but the front doors are locked."

The man blinked in
surprise, then said, "I'm going to the same party. I thought it
was just an office sort of thing."

"What?" Rabbi
Hassid asked.

"Well, I work here,"
the man explained. "For the past month, I've been doing
psychological experiments, trying to find what effects faith can have
on depression. Mike and I never really got along, so when I got the
invitation to the party, I figured everyone in the office was
invited."

With each new arrival,
the situation seemed to get more and more mysterious. At least
Pennington suspected he had found the solution to one of his
problems. "If you work here, you must have a key to the front
door, right?" he asked.

"Yes," the man
replied. "But it's at home. Usually, the doors are open during
the day; whoever is the last to leave at night locks them. I
figured, with an office party, people would just leave the doors
unlocked."

The woman sighed
loudly, as if to demonstrate her frustration, then glanced at her
watch. "I give this party ten minutes," she declared. "If
someone doesn't unlock that door by then, I'm going home."

"That sounds like a
good plan," Pennington agreed.

Luckily, they didn't
have to wait ten minutes. After a very short while, Rabbi Hassid
proclaimed, "I see someone in there!" He pounded on the door a
couple of times in an attempt to capture the attention of whoever
waited inside, then declared, "He's coming."

Sure enough, a few
seconds later, a man pushed the door open. Apparently, the scientist
recognized him, for he cried, "Mike, what's the big idea? You
throw a party then lock your guests outside?"

Mike grinned, then
said, "I wanted my guests to have a chance to mingle and get to
know one another before dinner. Do you all know each other now?"

"Not really," the
woman answered.

Mike looked a bit
crestfallen as he led the partiers down the hallways and toward
Conference Room C, but he announced, "Well, you can't blame me
for trying, anyway. I guess we'll just have to wait and I'll
introduce everyone over dinner."

"Dinner? You're
serving dinner?" Pennington asked in surprise. The invitation
hadn't said anything about dinner, and he wasn't very hungry
after eating most of a frozen pizza before coming to the party.

"Of course I'm
serving dinner," Mike declared. "What sort of host would I be if
I didn't?"

To punctuate his words,
Pennington threw the doors open, and Pennington's jaw dropped at
the sight of the long candlelit dinner laden with a variety of foods.
The aromas made even his mouth water.

"Go ahead, take your
seats," Mike called. "Help yourself, and I'll see to it that
everyone gets to know who everyone else is."

Pennington moved toward
the table, and pulled out a chair near the end. Rabbi Hassid strode
forward, pointed toward the roasted chicken that was clearly a main
course, and demanded, "Is this Kosher?"

"Yes, it is," Mike
assured him. "None of you have any reason to worry, I have taken
into account your dietary restrictions, and I made sure that there
are dishes everyone can eat. Professor Lindberg, the soup to your
left is vegetarian."

The woman nodded and
reached for her bowl, and Mike proclaimed, "Now, this is all a bit
informal, but I had really believed you all would have discussed your
work amongst yourselves while locked outside. You'll excuse me if
my introductions are a bit rushed."

Mike strode around the
table, and came to stand behind the scientist. "This is my
coworker, Mr. Tyler Porter. He works here in the Merrimac building
with me, although he's only been here about a month, whereas I have
devoted nearly two decades of my life to the project I am working on
now."

Mike's tone seemed a
little bit condescending, but he quickly pressed on, declaring, "Mike
is now studying the effects of faith on the psyche. He's trying to
approve that religious faith- any religious faith in any God- is good
for a person's mental health."

Porter smiled, and
Pennington suspected he was a little bit shy under all the attention
he received. Mike, however, had already moved on to Rabbi Hassid,
who sat beside Porter and ate a healthy portion of chicken.

"This man is Rabbi
Hassid," Mike announced. "He may very well be one of the most
prominent Jewish leaders in our community. Some of you may recognize
him from his prayer broadcasts that ran on television every evening
during Hanukkah."

Rabbi Hassid nodded
once, and Mike moved on to Pennington. "This man is the Minister
of the First Baptist Church, quite possibly the largest church in the
county," Mike declared. "Pennington is also author of the book
Living Your Life for Christ, which was greatly praised in a
good number of Christian magazines."

Pennington felt a bit
of color rise to his cheeks. He was proud of his work, of course,
but he rarely bragged about it. His book had been published five
long years ago, and he was amazed that this Mike fellow had thought
it worthy of mention.

Mike now stood behind
his final guest, the woman. "Professor Natasha Lindberg is the
professor of philosophy and theology at Northern Community College,"
Mike announced. "Last year, she was given an award for effective
teaching styles. She has been recognized nationally for her
accomplishments in the classroom."

The introductions
finished, all those at dinner looked around at everyone else. Mike
took a seat for himself, then said, "I am Michael Blaine, and I
will be your host for this evening."

Apparently finished
with his monologue, Blaine sat down and drank a glass full of wine or
juice, Pennington wasn't quite certain what it was. Porter spoke
up to ask, "What's this all about? Why did you invite all of
us?"

Blaine smiled as if he
had been waiting for someone to ask this question. After a moment,
he asked, "Haven't you figured out the common trait among you all
yet? Each of you works a job that depends on the existence of God.
Some of you lead people in faith and religious services, while others
you try to study God's presence in ordinary people's lives.

Now, it was
Pennington's turn to speak up. "What's your point?" he
asked, just a little bit agitated by the sarcastic tone in Blaine's
voice.

Blaine folded his
hands, then asked, "What if I were to ask each of you now to
provide evidence that God exists? What would you say?"

"God exists because
people need him to exist," Porter declared. "People are
incomplete without God."

"His works are great,
and there is evidence of a Creator in the beauty of the world,"
Rabbi Hassid proclaimed.

Lindberg shook her
head, then mumbled, "I can't think of any conclusive evidence.
Lots of people believe in God, though, and that many people can't
all be wrong."

Blaine's smile grew,
and he said, "Let's all talk about the lots of people who believe
in God. Let's be honest now. Yes, many people believe in God, but
not the same God. Nobody here can try to claim that the Christian
Trinity is the same as the Jewish Jehovah, and the Jewish God is
certainly not the pantheon worshiped by the ancients, and the
pantheon cannot be the animal spirits of pagans, nor are animal
spirits the ancestors worshipped by the Chinese."

Lindberg spoke up,
"Maybe they are all the same God, but different people perceive it
in different day."

"Now, my dear
professor, how likely do you think that really is?" Blaine asked.
"If there were such a thing as God, wouldn't He want everyone to
see Him in the same way? Besides, claiming that God must exist
because so many people believe in Him doesn't hold water when one
takes into account the vast number of atheists such as myself in the
world."

Once more, Pennington
wished he hadn't come. Somehow, he suspected he would spend the
rest of the night defending himself and his beliefs. "Why did you
bring us all here if you just wanted to insult us?" he asked.

"Oh, I'm not here
to insult you," Blaine assured Pennington. "Your role in all
this will be clear soon enough, but first, I need to further explain
my theories."

Rabbi Hassid made
offended noises, which Blaine ignored. "Now, if God was real,
everyone would feel the same thing about morality, wouldn't they?"
he asked.

Professor Lindberg
started to interrupt with some explanation concerning free will, but
Blaine cut her off. "Oh, I'm sure that God might allow some
differences. Some people might have different opinions of culture
and so forth, but let's talk about major questions of morality. If
God existed, wouldn't you agree that everyone would think murder is
wrong?"

"Everyone does think
murder is wrong," Porter protested.

"You're confused,"
Blaine countered. "The majority of people think murder is wrong,
but some people don't, and some of those people commit murder. The
same is true of rape, incest, thievery, adultery, and any other crime
you might be able to think of. There is no crime that is universally
considered wrong, for you will always be able to find at least one
person, and most likely more people, who not thinks that crime isn't
bad, but who actually committed it."

"Of course not,"
Blaine agreed. "It did give me the idea for this experiment,
though. I wondered what would happen if I raised a child and shut
him off from all outside contact. Without the contaminating factors
of society to teach him right from wrong, would he develop a moral
code, or would he prove that humans are, by nature, relativist
creatures and thus not creatures of any God?"

"That sort of
experiment would be terrible!" Lindberg gasped. "Unconscionable!"

"Only if you believe
terrible, unconscionable things exist," Blaine replied. "If all
our actions are relative, however, and there's no such thing as
good or bad, who's to say there's anything wrong with this
experiment?"

"What did you do,
exactly?" Porter asked.

"I adopted a young
orphan boy as an infant," Blaine answered. "Some of the nurses
around here call him Jasper. Anyway, Jaspers contact with people has
been very limited. He is constantly monitored, and his teachers, who
taught him to read and write and speak, have been careful never to
introduce him to concepts like good and bad, right and wrong. I hope
to prove that without society's influence, nobody would develop a
conscience, and codes of morality are unnatural."

"You can't prove
anything with only one boy," Porter protested. "This isn't
even a real experiment. You need a control group, measurable
quantities, scientific measurements!"

"OK, perhaps it's
wrong of me to call this an experiment," Blaine conceded. "It's
more of a test, and exploration of how much society influences our
youths. I brought you all here because I suspect you will be the
greatest protestors- the religious element. I wanted you to see my
experiment for yourself, and to determine that I haven't influenced
the results in any way. This experiment- this test, if you will- is
entirely unbiased."

Pennington felt bad
about the matter, but he set aside his fork and knife, no longer
hungry, and said, "I'll take a look at this experiment of yours."

"I will, too,"
Porter proclaimed, and all around the table, everyone agreed to take
a look at Jasper.

Soon, Blaine led his
guests toward his own research labs. A giant window in one of the
rooms showed Jasper sitting alone in an entirely bare white room.
"This is Jasper," Blaine proclaimed.

Pennington approached
the window to gape at the boy, who sat on the floor staring at the
blank white wall before him. "Why isn't he moving?" Pennington
asked.

"Where's he
supposed to move to?" Blaine countered. "Young Jasper here
doesn't have all the diversions of modern life. We don't let him
watch television or play video games or read books because too many
of those sorts of things contain morals and lessons. He works out
for an hour every day for health reasons, and sometimes he can read
carefully screened excepts from Encyclopedias, but other than that,
there isn't much for Jasper to do with his time."

His fellows joined him,
peering at Jasper through the two-way mirror. "Doesn't he get
bored?" Rabbi Hassid asked.

"Probably," Blaine
replied with a shrug. "He doesn't know of any way of life any
different, though. This is the only way of life ever known."

Pennington's stomach
turned itself in knots as he wondered if what Jasper lived could even
be considered life.

"So," Blaine asked
from behind him. "What do you think of my experiment?"

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